Jewish protest — voiced by prophets, judges, and rabbis — frequently targeted the rebellious people who had abandoned the straight path that finds favor with God, or who simply stopped advancing along it. But a close reading of the classical Jewish texts reveals that Jewish protest was directed, not only against the people, but also, on a far more profound level, against God. It is not only that throughout Jewish history we find frequent cases of complaints and anger vented against God; it is that Jewish history itself is one long bitter protest against Him. For it is possible to conceive of God in two ways, and in opposition to both these ways, Judaism is a protest movement
The Jewish God was never an abstract entity totally cut off from the world. Despite Maimonides’ attempt to win adherents for it, the Aristotelian Unmoved Mover never spoke to the heart of the Jewish people — as opposed to the paternal and regal figure whom we meet from the Bible onwards to the Chassidic movement. This is the first way in which we can conceive of God: as creator and governor, as the primordial apex that precedes the universe, as the being who holds the world in His hand — and as such, bears responsibility for making sure that it runs smoothly. But His attempt at this is not always successful, in ways that are often dreadful and terrible, and men and women stand up and cry out their protest.
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